Re: Fire Control lock-on (was: Re: [FT] squadron suggestions)

Here's another way to handle ECM/Evasion.  Feel free to rip it apart, or
(more likely) just ignore it.

Every ECM/Evasion point provides one (or more) die worth of
damage reduction. This is rolled after movement, but before firing (and
noted on your movement sheet).

The die is the EXACT same as beam dice, and applies to ALL damage
(creating no particular large swing in balance between weapons).

During that turn, you just ignore that amount of damage before you
start crossing off hull boxes (effectively they are temporary hull/armor
boxes).

It involves another round of die rolls, but eliminates the
all-or-nothing
effect that's caused by lock-on rolls, and the fiddliness of modifying
range bands.

I don't think it favors large ships. Small ships should, in fact, be
getting a larger "percentage" of extra damage taking capacity each turn
they evade or use ECM than a comparable large vessel (although
this might be evened out by large vessels having more chances to
evade/use ECM).

It would promote the tactic of high thrust ships accelerating fast than
coasting/evading while they made their attack pass.

And, of course, it's simple.

Daryl

On 6/24/05, tsarith@io.com <tsarith@io.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> I'm delurking for a while to comment on this.  Right now I am just
> sticking to the original idea, not the commentsback on it.
> 
> I don't think a lock on roll is a good mechanic.
> 
> 1	  FT already takes Fire COntrol into account by requiring you to
> dedicate fire control to fire.
> 2.	  Its NOT FUN.	honestly, this is the biggest point.  I have
played
> games with a Fire Control roll.  NOthing ruins your enjoyment of a
game
> like having played really well, and then not being able to do anything
> because of a single eff-ing die roll.  Absolutely not fun.  That kind
of
> super random only the luckiest player can win should be left to GW.
> 3.	  As I said before, its too random.  We already have a fair
amount
> of uncertainty in the attack rolls.  Do we need to have a "all or
nothing"
> roll to be able to attack as well?  I don't think so.  I have always
> thought of the GZG games to be games of strategy and tactics, not
random
> rolling.
> 
> Instead of a roll to determine lock on, how about making it more FC
> dependant.  Each level of ECM/Stealth requires an additional FC to be
> dedicated to be able to target and fire.  ECCM could them be modeled
as
> something similiar to a FC that is dedicated to a single target to
counter
> its ECM, high power sensors to counter stealth.  This will foster more
> strategy adn tactics, instead of "roll and don't get a one".
> 
> As for evasion, aren't ships assumed to be evading anyway?  FT is a
game
> of abstractions, and I always got the impression that ships were using
> their manuvering thrusters to provide as much randomness as possiblie
-
> thus the 50%+ miss rates on shooting anyway.	Plus, Evasion will add
more
> book keeping, which is always, IMO, something to avoid.  Every ship on
the
> table could potentially need to yet another marker or comment to keep
> track of.
> 
> In addition, the evasion bonus is way, way too high, if we are going
with
> it (which we shouldn't).  It is possible to have escorts sitting in
the
> middle of the enemy fleet and being untargetable due to evasion, size
and
> fire control.  And do we really want to see what the Kra'vaak can do
with
> these evasion rules?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Peter Engebos 			  T'sarith Degaalth
> tsarith@io.com			  http://www.io.com/~tsarith
> 
>    "Here at Ortillery Command we have at our diposal hundred megawatt
laser
> beams, mach 20 titanium rods and guided thermonuclear bombs. Some
people say
>   we think that we're God. We're not God. We just borrowed his SMITE
button
>			   for our fire control system"
> 
>